Education! (and the further educated...)

[Genesis]

...the moral is - do a vocational degree, don't do stupid subjects like history, philosopy, political science, media studies etc - save urself while u can!

I agree too. My advice to all those people about to take up a course is this: Do something that is interesting and at the same time guarantees that you WILL get a job. Courses on history, phil etc. might seem to offer great depth and might be different from "the courses everybody else is taking" and might even be interesting. But if after completing the course and u don't land a job, u'll end up on ur ass in addition to having fucked away 4-5 years of your life.

P.S: Ignore if u're filthy rich. 

[Jim]

Fucked away 4-5 years of your life?

University isn't only about getting a job at the end of it...

All about the end product, eh?

You don't read a book to see how it ends, do you?

Well,

you might.

[Genesis]

University isn't only about getting a job at the end of it...

Really now... What's it about then? Gaining knowledge? I could gain more knowledge going throught the Internet for 4 years than from some course prescribed for me by a bunch of ninny profs...

[Butch Français]

I dropped out of school. but now I am the king of the company, without the student debt of course!

[Skeba]

Really now... What's it about then? Gaining knowledge? I could gain more knowledge going throught the Internet for 4 years than from some course prescribed for me by a bunch of ninny profs...

Well, at least for me my education, and the school in general has given me, a lot more than just book knowledge and an opportunity to get a job when I graduate. But I guess that depends on what school you go to.

[Jessica]

I was always told i was stupid.

I was always compared to my oh so clever brother.

When i got my audition for that school, i was like " OMG !!! i MAY be good at something !!!!"

Then, when i remembred not being able to remember my math lessons from one day to the next, i discovered i could remember a whole play in a night ( thanks to my then boyfriend).

What education did to me was to almost play a role my parents hadn't played, and it gave me confidence i was NOT stupid, that i could be good at something, that i was unique and if i was uniquely weird, fuck it, some people would see through the weird and like me for me.

You don't have to DO " something" with a diploma, but at the end of the day, i quit school at 15, i had a hard tough time with myself and i fought a battle too many.

BUT when i got there at my drama school, i was told by the headmistress " you are the first foreigner we have in 80 years, it is going to be hard for you, hang on"

After three years, the same woman came up to me and said " well, jessica, i am proud of you. I didn't know if you could, especially after missing so much in your second year and some in your third ( kidney infection, i was in st thomas hospital london i nthe dialise ward in june 1994), but you did it. You pulled through.

We were 6000 auditionning, 17 got in, after three years, 6 of us remained.

So if some of you think education is something that will not bring anything good for you, i think you should relook at it, or at yourselves and rethink how you see things, because you have reasons to be proud of yous, and you don't even see them.

[Genesis]

Really now... What's it about then? Gaining knowledge? I could gain more knowledge going throught the Internet for 4 years than from some course prescribed for me by a bunch of ninny profs...

Well, at least for me my education, and the school in general has given me, a lot more than just book knowledge and an opportunity to get a job when I graduate. But I guess that depends on what school you go to.

No matter what college u go to, if u don't supplement ur knowledge from outside u're not going to survive in the industry. After all, many graduates study the same course as you do. What makes u different? It's not just about scoring good grades, atleast not over here...

[Skeba]

No matter what college u go to, if u don't supplement ur knowledge from outside u're not going to survive in the industry. After all, many graduates study the same course as you do. What makes u different? It's not just about scoring good grades, atleast not over here...

I know that..  Of course you need to supplement your knowledge from the outside. We don't usually have just one book in course (though some of the books might be from for example professors from our own school). We're not told to study these, and these pages in order to pass. We're told what are the areas we should know and study in order to pass. So if you're smart you always find the info from multiple sources. And the main point is not alone the fact that you have to learn the coursematerial, but that you learn to learn.. After all. Some of the stuff you learn in the first year here will be dated by the time one graduates. 

But what I was referring to, was when you questioned Jim's reply on how education is about more than just getting a job. And for me this university has been. It's given me a whole lot more. So even if was one of the unfortunate ones who didn't have a job already when I graduate (though 90% of students are already employed when they graduate), I don't think that the 6 years I spent here have been for nothing.

[Genesis]

But what I was referring to, was when you questioned Jim's reply on how education is about more than just getting a job. And for me this university has been. It's given me a whole lot more. So even if was one of the unfortunate ones who didn't have a job already when I graduate (though 90% of students are already employed when they graduate), I don't think that the 6 years I spent here have been for nothing.

Good for you. I seriously feel my course sucks. When I chose to join Comp Sci, I didn't know they had sem papers on subjects ranging from Eng. Mechanics to Professional Ethics and unless u clear all papers on the first attempt, u don't get a good grade point average! I don't know how the system abroad works but here it's just out of tune...

[Jim]

...Life experience, or something like that, the chance to not have to go straight into full time work...I will gladly stay in education for as long as I can if it means that I don't have to work full time.

If your education (I don't know how far you went, maybe you dropped out of high school, maybe you graduated from Harvard as king of the world) was all about being educated, then that's good for you.

If I hadn't gone to college, not only would I not know half the things that I do now, but I also wouldn't know half the people. Sometimes I wonder if choosing to stay in education after school was the right choice for me...

and then I think of what my life would be like had I not. And I feel certain that I made the right decision.

What am I expecting from my degree in Film at the end of it all? Not a lot in all honesty. If I do get into the film or television industry, then great. If I don't, well then at least I can say that I tried.

And if it all goes fucked up? Well. At least I can rest assured that I, with my degree, will be chosen ahead of anybody that never went to university, without a second thought, for pretty much any job that something along those lines falls under.

[Sakib]

I'm gonna take my GCSEs in May this year. My subjects are; Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English Language, English literature, History, Maths, ICT, RE, PE and Business Studies. I can't wait to go to college because you only do what you choose. I've chosen for A-Levels; Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology though i have to do OCN maths if i want to do physics because i dont want to do maths A-Levels.

[Jim]

I felt right fucked over with my GCSE's.

I took the exact same ones that you are, Sakib, except I had to do German and Resistant Materials instead of PE and Business.

I was predicted everything from an A (History) to an E (Tec, German), and I ended up with all B's, apart from my A in ICT.

I would happily have traded in a couple of those B's for A's in things I actually liked, and thought that I was good at...History, Maths.

For me, German is a perfect exaple of how fucked the grading system is in this country. It must have been taken by all the fuckwits, because I did nothing in that subject. Not a thing outside of class. I hated the fucking language, my teacher had to stop the tape during my oral exam. I guess my way through the written papers. History on the other hand is usually taken by those who actually want to learn something (fair enough, I guess that didn't always include me, but you get what I mean...). So I ended up with a B in both. And yet, both are worth the same as each other at the end of the day. Go figure.

[Deez Nuts]

I went to a small DII uni in Minnesota to play football and baseball and graduated with a double major in business management and sport and recreation management. ?That got me a job but if you want to get into the business world seriously you need 'ins' and you need a masters and 5 years of experience. ?So I said fuck that and am getting my teaching license to teach little rugrats. ?The fact of only working 9 months a year appeals to me plus having every weekend and holiday off. ?

For those that question the value of education: ?The piece of paper might mean a little bit towards your future but the main thing will be the social skills that you develop and knowing students and professors that can help you out down the road. ?Because it goes with the age old saying of "It's not WHAT you know but WHO you know". ?

[Jim]

Who you know, eh? Well, some of my teachers at A-Level alone have been a great help to me, they've really helped me appreciate the subject. I seriously wonder if it wasn't for them, whether I would still be taking the subject. Last year I had two teachers for Classics; had I just had one of them, who was a woman, I would have been bored to tears throughout the year. Thankfully I also had a great teacher, and this year he's the only one that we have.

Social skills you say? Good, because I ain't got too many of them at the moment.

[Danny Top Hat]

Jim, dude, I take it all back.  Don't go to uni.  I've got two essays and some group work to do, all by the end of the month.

I've just recieved episodes 1-175 of Naruto, and I have Counter Strike on it's way to me in the post.  There's no way i'll get this all done on time.

[Mal Brossard]

Education.  As of right now, it's all I have going for me.

$50,000 sunk into private elementary and middle school.
$24,000 put into private high school, not including financial aid received.
$70,000 put into college, not including loans and grants.

Total: US$144,000 of my parents money spent, a broadcast journalism degree, and all I do is operate the board for an AM radio station in Texas, work an unpaid gig doing play-by-play for a junior hockey team, $3500 in credit card debt, $5000 in student loans needing repayment, and i'm going bald from stress at only 21.

I should have studied music, like I had considered.

[Mandy.]

I'm gonna take my GCSEs in May this year.

Same here. My subjects are: Maths, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Art (I surely know I'm gonna fail, should've chosen Business), Product Design, ICT, Physics, English Language, English Literature, RS, Spanish, History (used to do Music instead, but I dropped it).


And I'm thinking about Business, Spanish, English Literature, Maths and History for A levels.

[Jim]

Good luck there Mandy, that's quite a few GCSE's, especialy if your Science is a double or a triple...

As I said before, I'm sure that you'll do a lot better in your exams than you think you will. At least, that's how it worked out for most people I know. Thankfully the youth of England are going to the shitter, so the grade boundries are pretty low at the moment. There are a ton of stupid pricks about that have to take these exams, and their low scores will help bring the averages down; that and the stupid pricks from last year. As long you turn up to the exam, I'm sure you'll be fine.

As for failing? Ha! It's pretty hard to actually fail (U) a GCSE.

Considering you're doing 11 subjects, and I thought that around 9 was the norm, you must be a pretty smart girl. So good luck, but I'm sure you won't need it.

Jim, dude, I take it all back.  Don't go to uni.  I've got two essays and some group work to do, all by the end of the month.

That's all the fun of it though, isn't it?

I love staying up until, like, 4 in the morning with some coursework that I haven't done, telling myself how much of a prick I am, and almost breaking down. I assume that it would be even better at uni...............


Edit: Mandy! You included Physics twice! I guess you're not as clever as I thought, and you're probably going to fail all your exams.

[Hammy]

I love staying up until, like, 4 in the morning with some coursework that I haven't done, telling myself how much of a prick I am, and almost breaking down. I assume that it would be even better at uni...............

I've done that for years, i never learn.

'tis even better at uni, 24/7 library helped me out a fair few times.......

....one time i did break down at like 2 in the morning, my mate who wasn't living at uni after talking to me on msn actually drove over and helped me do it (well he did it really.....)

[Jim]

I felt like doing that with my English coursework the other day.

Three fucking months, and I was sitting in front of my laptop at 3am the day it was due in with something that was embarrasing to hand in (I just left it on her desk, I didn't want to look her in the eye when I gave it to her).

I'm not sure why I'm such a fucking prick...